(ORDO NEWS) — In 2011, scientists discovered something unexpected hiding under the Amazon. There, at a depth of 4000 meters underground, there is a huge reservoir, much wider than the Amazon itself.
The Hamza River, as Brazil’s National Observatory has informally named the beast, acts as a drain for the region and was discovered while drilling wells by oil company Petrobras.
Hundreds of wells were drilled back in the 70s and 80s, but when scientists looked inside, they discovered a monstrous waterway underground.
It was in honor of the leader of this group of researchers that the underground waterway was named.
It starts under the Andes in the Akko region and winds up to the Solimoens, Amazonas and Marajo basins, and then slips unnoticed into the Atlantic Ocean.
The Amazon River moves at a speed of about 5 meters per second. By comparison, the painfully slow flowing Hamza moves at a speed of 1 millimeter per hour.
This speed means that it is not technically a river, despite its informal name, as it does not flow fast enough. This is most likely a giant drainage system running through porous rock and is very salty.
The Hamza flows in the same direction as the Amazon, from west to east, and is only slightly shorter in length.
The width of the river is about 100 times greater than that of the Amazon, and ranges from 200 to 400 kilometers.
“It is likely that this river is responsible for the low salinity levels in the waters around the mouth of the Amazon,” the Mongabay National Observatory said.
“The Amazon region has two fluid discharge systems: surface drainage [through] the Amazon River… and groundwater flow through deep sedimentary layers.”
Hamza is not the only peculiar waterway in the region. Elsewhere in the Amazon, a river of boiling water exists.
Shanai timpiska, meaning “boiling with the heat of the sun,” is surprisingly huge considering the region’s lack of volcanoes, the seething cauldrons of molten rock that typically give rise to hot springs and dangerous natural hot tubs.
Hot water flows for 6.24 kilometers with an average temperature of 86 degrees Celsius, which requires a huge amount of energy.
Chemical analyzes seem to indicate that it gets that hot as it falls as rain, which then “boils” with the Earth‘s geothermal energy.
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